Definition of Mind and Its Relationship with the Body: Karma Kagyu

In Buddhism in general, mind is referring to mental activity. This is the first really important point to understand. It’s the individual subjective experiencing of something. It refers to the mental activity of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling physical sensations and thinking. 

When we’re talking about mind, we not speaking about some immaterial thing that’s doing the seeing, hearing or thinking. We’re talking about the actual moment-to-moment activity of seeing, hearing etc. This mental activity changes from moment to moment as it does different things moment to moment in its continuity. One moment we’re seeing, another we’re hearing; often we’re seeing and hearing at the same time, and we’re thinking with all of that changing from moment to moment to moment.

In this sense, we can say that our mental activity is impermanent in the sense that it is changing from moment to moment and doing different things at different moments. It’s conditioned or affected by what it’s doing.

But if we look at it from another point of view, if its essential nature referring to the conventional and deepest natures, then what it is and how it exists, and the process itself of all that’s going on, remain the same. From that point of view, mental activity, meaning the essential nature of mental activity, is permanent. It’s unconditioned, unaffected by anything and not created by anyone. When we read these seeming contradictory explanations where in some places it says the mind is impermanent and in other places it says it’s permanent, we have to be careful not to understand that in an incorrect way. 

In our Western languages, the words “permanent” and “impermanent” have two meanings. They can mean eternal and permanent. In that sense, Buddhism accepts that mental continuums are eternal and have no beginning and no end. Impermanent would imply that something has a beginning and an end and is only temporary. In the discussion of whether mind is permanent or impermanent, that is not what is being questioned. It’s referring to whether or not it’s static; or in other words, does it change or not change? 

It’s content and what it’s doing in each moment is changing; but its essential nature of what it is and how it exists is always the same. No matter what it’s doing, that’s not affected by anything. 

Mental Activity Is Individual

Another very important point is that mental activity is individual. In Buddhism, we’re not talking about some sort of universal mind or collective unconscious or anything like that. Although the conventional and deepest natures of everybody’s mind is the same, that doesn’t make all minds into one mind. A funny example of this is noses; we all have a nose, but that doesn’t mean that we share the great nose in the sky, or we all have the same nose. It’s exactly the same thing with the mind. Our experiencing of something and someone else’s experiencing of something isn’t the same. They are different but the same in that both are experiencing something. Okay?

Let’s take a moment to digest what we’ve covered so far. 

• Mind is mental activity; it’s not something that’s doing the activity. 
• We’re not talking about mind as some immaterial thing that’s doing it. We’re talking about the mental activity. 
• It changes from moment to moment although what it is, its nature, is always the same.
• It’s individual.
• We are all seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling physical sensations. We’re all doing the same thing, but what and how we are seeing and hearing and so on, is all different. It’s changing from moment to moment.
• This is all mental activity. 

Many scientists would like to reduce that mental activity to something physical. In Buddhism, of course we say that mental activity has a physical basis. There’s a gross physical basis in humans of a living functioning brain and nervous system inside the body. Even at the moment of death, there is the mental activity of experiencing death. 

Mental Activity and Its Basis

Remember we are talking about the individual subjective experiencing of something. If we define mental activity like that, then from the Buddhist point of view there is the activity of experiencing death that occurs on the basis of subtlest energy. After death there’s the mental activity of experiencing the in-between state, the bardo, and that occurs on the basis of subtle, not the subtlest, energy. Then the mental activity continues whether we are going to be reborn as an animal or human on the basis of some sort of physical body, nervous system, brain and these sorts of things made out of physical elements. Like that, there is always an individual continuum going from moment to moment to moment based on previous experiences, cause and effect, karma, these types of things. 

We’re not going to get into the discussion of beginningless mind and rebirth and so on. Let’s take that for granted at this time in our discussion. Mind doesn’t refer to any of these gross or subtle physical bases but to the mental functioning activity on the basis of the physical. In our discussion, we will limit it to human mental activity that occurs on the basis of the brain, the nervous system and all of the apparatus involved in that. We’re not speaking about stimulating a neuron on a Petri dish. We’re talking about a living functioning nervous system. 

If we think in terms of that, with humans, there can’t be mental activity without physical functioning brain. Also, it can’t be human living functioning brain without some mental activity. Even if we think on a more subtle level, if there are brain waves going on, that’s mental activity. If there is mental activity, there are brain waves. In that sense, the mental activity and the functioning of a basis are inseparable. We are just describing it from different points of view. 

If the brain is functioning, what is going on? It’s mental activity, the seeing, hearing, thinking; also, the unconscious mental activity of keeping the heart beating etc. If there’s mental activity, there are brain waves. It’s a brain and nervous system functioning at least on some level. It’s not contradictory. 

[Pause]

As I said, each individual continuum is individual and has no beginning and no end. That individuality is still maintained even when we become enlightened Buddhas. It’s not one of the Hindu images sometimes used of all rivers flow into the ocean and become one. That’s not Buddhism thought. Even when we become enlightened, we still retain our individuality. Shakyamuni Buddha isn’t the same as Maitreya Buddha. They are individuals. That is demonstrated by the fact that different people have the karma to be able to receive the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha and some people don’t. They have the karma and connections to be able to receive teachings from Maitreya. This is why we pray to be reborn at the time when Maitreya Buddha comes.

That demonstrates that they are different, although their attainment is the same, their understanding is the same, the omniscience is the same, the compassion is the same; nevertheless, they are individuals.

By individual, does this mean they still lose their ego?

We will be discussing that. They lose ego in the sense of ever imagining that they are concrete “me” existing independently of everything else and that there is something inside “me” that makes me “me” as an individual.

Isn’t the Hindu idea of all rivers flowing into one exactly that? You’re still like the waves coming off the ocean but you lose the ego.

There is that explanation that all rivers flow into the ocean and it all becomes one in the ocean. It isn’t really that they are dropping the ego. One has to differentiate between an ego and a self. The ego is something which is impossible and doesn’t exist. There’s a healthy sense of a self and an unhealthy sense of a self. The healthy sense of a self doesn’t inflate the sense of the self into an ego. For instance, we always have to have our way, we’re the center of attention and so on. That’s inflating the self; so that we get rid of. But still, there is a healthy sense of self with which we actually get out of bed in the morning and do things and help others. Without that, we would be in a terrible depression without the will or energy to do anything. That isn’t a healthy sense of self.

Buddhas still have a self, in that they are an individual being. What they lose is the belief in the inflation. The inflation into an ego is just imagination mistakenly believed in. It’s important to be a bit careful when we look at issues in terms of ego. It’s a Western word with quite a Western meaning within the context of Western psychology. If we put it in Buddhist terms, then it’s much easier to see what’s going on. If we leave it in Western terms, it tends to bring confusion, because we bring in Western associations which aren’t really relevant to the discussion.

Even when water from the rivers goes into the ocean, if using that analogy, the molecules of water still retain their individuality. As mentioned, this is a Hindu image that is sometimes used (not all the time). To go back to the point, Shakyamuni Buddha and Maitreya Buddha aren’t the same. I am not you and we don’t become soup, a mixture like that when we become enlightened. It’s sort of like that.

[Pause to digest since there has been a bit of discussion on it]

There’s nothing incorrect about being an individual. We get into trouble when we think that we are something special and we have to prove it and defend it. Then we are inflating our individuality with being something special. When we get rid of that, it’s still an individual. I’m still me and not you. We’re all the same in that everybody wants to be happy and not unhappy, but that doesn’t make you into me or me into you. Does it? No.

Two Ways to Describe Mental Activity

There are two ways of describing this mental activity. The function of seeing, hearing, thinking and so on can be described from a physical and material point of view. This would include the transmission of neural energy and bio-chemical exchanges in a neural network, if we want to get scientific about it. That’s one way of describing the mental activity. The other way is the individual subjective point of view. We can describe it from a materialistic point of view, or from an individual subjective point of view and they can be differentiated from each other from two conceptual points of view. There is the scientific point of view and the Buddhist point of view. Both are referring to the same phenomenon, the function of mental activity. 

[Pause]

We can be talking about the same phenomenon from two different points of view and both can be valid. For instance, we can call any object by a word in one language and another word in another language. Both are correct. Aren’t they? Just because there is a scientific point of view, materialistic point of view, it doesn’t negate that there is also a subjective point of view that Buddhism presents; it’s how we describe mental activity from an individual subjective point of view.

We would have to say that they are non-dual. This doesn’t mean that they are identical. Non-dual means that if one is valid, so is the other. Both are equally valid. This is a very important point especially in any discussions with very materialistic scientists. It’s important that Buddhism isn’t refuting science. It’s just describing from a subjective point of view what science is describing in physical terms. That has as much validity as the Buddhist description of what is going on. 

Our subjectively experientially described mental activity of a living functioning brain and nervous system is what we mean by mind. 

Non-Duality

Mental activity always has content. We can’t just be experiencing; we are always experiencing something. There can’t be something being experienced without there being the experiencing of it. There’s always content. That’s a very important point in terms of understanding non-duality. The experiencing and what is experienced are non-dual in the sense that they are always together. If there is one, then there is the other; but it doesn’t make them the same thing.

What is going on with mental activity? It’s described with two words, usually translated as “clarity” and “awareness.” These really need to be understood correctly; otherwise, one can get quite an incorrect understanding.

Clarity

Clarity is explained with another Tibetan word, the word used for the rising of the sun. That means the mental activity of giving rise to some sort of mental aspect. This is something I refer to as a mental hologram, perhaps making this much more understandable as to what’s going on. When we talk about a mental hologram, we’re not talking about something only visual. There can be a mental hologram of a sound, a smell, a taste, a physical sensation, and of a thought. It’s not necessarily clear just because we have the word “clarity.” It doesn’t mean that it’s clear. It can be out of focus as well. There’s the arising of a mental hologram.

We can describe that in scientific terms. For that, what I find most accurate perhaps, is from IT, internet technology. Mental activity is the activity of transforming the data of photons, or electronic waves, or sound waves, or little molecules of smell or taste, or the waves of physical sensation, or brain waves, and it’s transforming them so that they arise as intelligible information. 

There is a difference between data and information. In a computer, data are a string of zeros and ones. Information is when that is transformed into something that is useable or understandable. This is exactly what mental activity does by analogy from a scientific point of view. There are electromagnetic waves and photons and such that come in. They become transformed through the transmission of neural energy and various bio-chemical exchanges. It gets to the various areas of the brain. How is it experienced? It’s experienced as the arising of this mental hologram. That’s what we see and hear. It’s just coming electromagnetic waves or sound waves as the data. It’s being transformed by my mental activity into information. It’s a sight; it’s a sound.

This is what clarity is referring to. It’s this giving rise to a mental hologram. It can also be a thought, in which we have a mental representation of a sound or words or a mental representation of a picture. It’s a mental hologram, isn’t it? There’s an entire scientific book, The Holographic Universe, about the whole universe being seen from our subjective point of view as holograms. It makes sense, if we think about it.

Could we say that the process from data to information is interpretation?

Interpretation comes next; it’s how we interpret information. The electromagnetic waves are transformed into a mental hologram and then our interpretation could be that this is our friend, or this is pretty, or we like this. We’re just talking about the basic thing of what is going on in every moment.

In every moment there’s the arising of a mental hologram. The mental activity displays that information as a mental hologram like the computer displays the zeros and ones as an image on the screen. It’s really very similar.

[Pause]

Do you understand the meaning of clarity? The mental hologram could be of a blur; it doesn’t mean that it is clear or in focus.

Awareness

The second word in the definition is awareness. That’s how it’s usually translated. That’s explained with another Tibetan word that mean “an engagement.” It’s a cognitive engagement. “Cognitive” or “cognition” is the most general word for any type of mental activity. It’s not necessarily conscious. There is conscious and unconscious. We might have unconscious hostility or these sorts of things. It’s a mental cognitive engagement. 

The cognitive engagement can be seeing, hearing, thinking, etc. It can be accurate or inaccurate; decisive or indecisive; it can be with or without understanding; it can be conceptual or non-conceptual. There is a huge variety of ways of cognitively engaging.

Clarity and Awareness Are Non-Dual

We have the giving rise to a mental hologram and the cognitive engagement. Are these two separate things? Is it that first there is the arising of a mental hologram and then we see it? Is it that first a thought arises and then we think it? That doesn’t make any sense, does it? It’s not that a thought arises and then we think it. The two are referring to the same phenomenon being described from two points of view.

From a scientific point of view, for example, seeing is the transformation of electromagnetic waves through a neural network into a mental hologram. It’s the transformation of that data into a sight. That’s seeing. Hearing is the transformation of sound waves into a hologram of a sound. That’s what hearing is. This is non-dual; they are referring to the same activity but what’s going on is just being described from two different points of view.

That’s an important point to understand. It’s not that first a mental hologram arises and then we see it or think it or hear it.

[Pause]

Next is the very important point about the relation between the self and mental activity. There’s no independently existing “me” findable inside the material brain or inside some immaterial mind that uses the brain or mind like a machine to see or think things. That’s a deceptive appearance. It’s a deceptive appearance of a little “me” sitting inside our heads talking – that voice going on in our minds all the time. For instance, “What should I do now?” It’s deceptive that we use our brain in order to think of something, as if it’s a machine over there. It might feel like that; but it’s a deceptive appearance. There are cartoons like that; but that’s not what is actually going on, is it? 

There’s no separate “me” existing independently from all of that. However, that doesn’t mean that there’s no one that’s the agent of mental activity or no one experiencing it. That’s the other extreme. Mental activity, after all, is individual and subjective. That means there’s a person. It’s just that the person or individual is not something totally separate from the mental activity and it’s not identical with the mental activity either. 

They are non-dual. We can’t have the mental activity without it being the mental activity of someone. We can’t have someone without mental activity; otherwise, it’s a dead body and not a living being. If there’s a living being, there’s mental activity; and if there’s mental activity, there’s a living being, an individual, a person. If there’s one, there’s the other. They aren’t totally the same and not totally different.

When we begin the discussion of the five aggregates, we will go into much greater detail about the self. Just in general, in terms of mental activity it always has to be the mental activity of someone. It can’t just be an abstract mental activity up in the sky. 

[Pause]

Mental Activity Is Multi-Part

The last point for now about mental activity is that it is multi-part. There’s seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling physical sensations, thinking, and all of that; in addition, they are accompanied by many mental factors. Some of these mental factors are mechanical, such as interest, attention and concentration. There’s also feeling some level of happiness or unhappiness as part of experiencing something. Also, there are various emotions; some are constructive like love or patience, while others are destructive and disturbing like anger, attachment and greed.

Our mental activity is multi-part and is made up of many different factors and all of these, which are changing all the time. Our emotions are changing, levels of happy or unhappy are changing, what we are experiencing and the mental holograms are changing. Sometimes we’re seeing, sometimes we’re thinking. Our interest and attention change all the time. All of these are changing at different rates. 

That’s what the five aggregates are all about. It’s understanding all these different parts, how they function and what’s actually going on in each minute of our experience. That’s what we will be discussing in this lecture series.

Mind is referring to mental activity. It’s individual subjective experiencing of something. Individual means that there is always someone experiencing things. This is one way of describing the mental activity. We can also describe it in a mechanical, biological point of view in regard to what is going on in the brain and nervous system. It’s the same activity; it’s individual, goes on with no break in its continuity. Whether we’re asleep, conscious or unconscious, it continues on some level. 

Buddhism says that it goes on through death, and in-between period and rebirth, and into enlightenment without beginning or end. Nobody created it. It always retains its individuality; but that doesn’t mean that there are big walls around each of us separating “me” from “you” making us into something special. But still, we are individual; as there are five fingers, but that doesn’t make them all the same finger.

The mental activity is described from two points of view basically talking about the same thing. It’s the arising of a mental hologram, in other words, transforming data into information. It’s usually displayed, and that’s what seeing is, that’s the cognitive engagement. This applies to hearing and thinking and so on. The arising of a thought is what thinking is. 

That’s mental activity. It is multi-part with emotions and feelings and all of that, plus the mechanical factors such as attention, concentration, interest, and so on. If we understand all of that, and that it’s changing all the time, we can then affect it. We can do something about it if we can identify the troublemakers and things that give us problems. We need to strengthen something or dampen down on something or shut off something; but it isn’t that there is some separate “me” at the dashboard over here doing all that. 

That’s the tricky part of all of this. When we’re working on ourselves, we can get the impression that “I” am over here and there’s myself over there and “I’m” working on it. That’s how it feels but it’s not really accurate, is it? That’s how we talk about it, “I’m working on myself,” or “I’m not happy about myself and I want to change it.” All that’s happening is mental activity from moment to moment, the mental activity of someone; but that “someone” isn’t separate from or identical with the mental activity.

That’s the tough part not only to intellectually understand but to really digest emotionally on a gut level especially in a moment-to-moment life.

[Pause]

Whether we are going deeper or not into Mahamudra or Dzogchen or any more sophisticated or advanced systems, they are all talking about the same thing. This is the basic of what mental activity is. Mahamudra and Dzogchen are speaking about this, but much more deeply into the topic. This is the foundation. It’s important to understand it.

You mentioned that this mental activity goes on after death, so that means it’s not dependent on the brain.

From the Buddhist perspective, it’s not dependent on the gross physical elements of the body; but there are subtle elements and then subtlest elements. Subtle elements are referring basically to neural energy. Within the body, for instance, when we are dreaming, the various images that arise aren’t made out of gross matter. It’s like a transformation of neural energy. When we have various disturbing emotions and so on, it is the disturbance of this subtle energy in the body. That’s why we feel nervous or stressed. That’s talking about this subtle energy. When we are dead, the subtlest level just describes the energy component of the clarity and awareness. It’s like the radio being on. In each lifetime it’s like the radio being on a certain station – if people still know what a radio is. It’s on different stations in different lifetimes, but the energy that just keeps it on is the subtlest energy. That continues through death and into the next life. It’s described as the subtlest wind, but in the West, we can understand that as energy.

Would that subtlest energy be what is experienced in the bardo?

In the bardo, it’s another form of subtle energy that is a bit more gross than that. The death existence is described as being similar to being asleep with no dreams. Bardo is described as a dream state with images arising. That’s with a subtle type of energy. It’s not quite the same as when we imagine or visualize things, but it is that type of energy.

I was wondering when you talk about mind is it the same as chitta?

Mind in Sanskrit is chitta. In Tibetan it’s sem. That’s what we’re talking about. Of course, different Indian philosophical systems will define it differently.

I was wondering, when you were talking about science describing mental activity just being from a different perspective and the discussion of whether or not brain activity produces consciousness which is the materialistic scientific world view, do you mean to say that these two views are complimentary or not?

Rather than saying that some scientists might say that brain activity produces consciousness, if they even accept that there is such a thing as consciousness, brain activity is consciousness. That’s the Buddhist point of view. It’s not that the brain activity produces it. It’s the same thing; whether unconsciousness or consciousness.

But it’s also more than that, as you were just describing with the subtle mind etc.

Brain activity and neural activity include different levels of physical phenomenon that are involved. There’s the gross level of the brain and the nervous system; but there is also the subtle level of neural energy. There are both a gross and subtle levels of things going on. We can speak on an even more subtle level of electrons and currents, neural transmitters and all sorts of different levels of what’s involved.

Wouldn’t that imply that, for example, karmic patterns can be in the brain, that we carry from life to life, can manifest as patterns in the brain.

In each lifetime there is going to be a physical basis that is going to be appropriate for supporting the ripening of karma that have been activated at the time of death in the previous lifetime. If the package of what is activated is the mental activity of a fly, then what will come from that is the connection of that mental continuum with the physical basis of a fly. That will support the mental activity of a fly. Both the karmic package that has been activated will propel the mental continuum to be connected to a physical basis and mental activity appropriate to that physical basis.

It’s not that on the basis of a fly brain we’re going to have human thoughts. We’re not going to be smacked with a fly swatter and crushed as a human. We’re not going to experience what a fly would experience. The mental hologram that appears through the multi-prism eye of a fly is very different from the mental hologram that appears from a human eye. That presents the interesting question of which one is correct? We start to question what is actually out there?

If we think in terms of electromagnetic waves, and reduce it to that, then it’s not a problem that fly eyes will make one type of holographic appearance and the human apparatus gives rise to different hologram. We’re just processing the data differently. It’s very interesting to start to think of it in terms of data and information and the device with which that data is transformed into information. Then we can understand the fly, the human and the fish.

We are using words brain, mind, and consciousness interchangeably. Does it say in any translations that the brain and the mind are equal? Can you say something about this?

The brain and the mind aren’t the same thing. Mind, as mentioned, is mental activity as described from a subjective experiential point of view. The physical basis for that is the brain. That doesn’t make mind and brain the same thing. Consciousness in the Western sense is contrasted with subconscious and unconscious. Unconsciousness in that sense could be completely not there or unconscious hostility when someone just isn’t aware of it. In the West it has quite a distinct set of meanings. In Buddhism it’s usually used, as we will get to, in the discussion of the aggregates in terms of eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness and so on. That’s something quite different.

Being conscious or unconscious in a Western sense has to do with attention and all sorts of subtle differences but the consciousness there is the same.

I was introduced to a difficult concept by a person trying to teach how to project the mind into different spaces, like traveling out of body. He introduced the concept of the mind being everything. Is the mind everything? Does this concept exist in Buddhism?

There are many different Buddhist tenet systems, or ways of looking at things. There’s one that is called Mind-Only School. This is basically dealing with the question of how we establish that something exists externally from what we experience. We can’t. Let’s take this table for example. We can only know about the table by seeing, talking, or thinking about it. It can’t exist on its own, by itself. We can’t prove that it exists externally. The only thing that we can talk about is the experience of it individually. 

How do we know that there is food in the refrigerator? We could know it by looking inside the refrigerator and by inference of knowing that we bought it and put it in the refrigerator before and it hasn’t disappeared probably. That’s knowing it. But that doesn’t mean that the table is my mind. It’s just that we can only know the table with the mind, we can only establish or prove that it exists or discuss that it exists in relation to the mind.

Then you’re equating the mind with the brain?

No. We’re talking about mental activity. That’s all that we’ve been speaking about. Except in this “Mind-Only” view, there are some who would say that there really aren’t any external phenomena at all. But then it becomes very difficult to have compassion for anyone that is just a figment of the imagination. That’s not what it’s really saying. A more reasonable approach to this is that we can only talk about things, establish or prove that there are such things in terms of a mind. 

This is why when there are conversations between the Dalia Lama and quantum physicists, that he says that this point is similar to quantum physics. It’s different in the sense that in quantum physics, when we can’t tell where the particle is, over here or over there or both places at the same time, and it only deflates into one position when someone sees it or a camera takes a picture. That is not the Buddhist position.

The position of quantum physics is that objectively a particle is deflated, when one person sees it and that’s it; whereas the Buddhist position is that there is an electromagnetic wave coming in and with one person’s mental hologram, it’s interpreted as one thing, for instance that all the people in the room are interested. Another person might interpret it as all the people are aliens from another planet and have taken on the form of humans and are basically going to eat us or something like that. Everybody would deflate the electromagnetic waves into their own personal hologram. That’s not quantum physics. 

In general, the relationship of mind with matter or energy is similar to quantum physics, but that doesn’t make everything the mind. It’s not to be taken literally. If everything were mental activity, there would be no objects. 

I read this book by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Progressive Stages on Meditation on Emptiness, and there is a concept that everything is mind. I understood a bit like as you said. Can you explain this more?

If we want to begin to examine the Chittamatra point of view, Mind-Only is discussing what is called the natal source, such as an oven is the natal source from which comes the bread, or a womb is the natal source from which comes a baby. The question is what is the natal source of what we perceive? Our positions, not Mind-Only, assert that the object, lets continue using the example of electromagnetic waves, are coming from an external source and the mental activity is coming from an internal source, from mind. What Mind-Only is saying is that no one can prove that the electromagnetic waves are coming from an external source. This is because we can only talk about it in relation to mind talking about it or seeing it or dealing with it. They are speaking of the mental hologram and where that comes from. The source of the mental hologram and the source of the ways of being aware of it, the consciousness and mental factors, are both coming from the same natal source. They say this is one seed of karmic tendency that gives rise to the mental hologram and the ways of being aware of it; the two aspects of mental activity. As mentioned, we can’t prove that the source of that is something external without actually encountering the external thing and seeing it. 

In addition, when this tenet system speaks about static phenomenon, like categories and so on, these arise with the mental activity. Therefore, in that sense, all phenomena are mind only. But that doesn’t mean that they are all mind. Mind is a way of being aware of something and still there are objects. But the objects are mental holograms. This is the Mind-Only School; it makes some sense and it’s a useful theory, especially if we translate it into actual situations.

I understood it as all the things out there, and there is my mind experiencing them and interpreting the data coming into my mind, transferring into information and this information is all produced and interpreted by my mind. I am aware of producing all these appearances. Everything that I experience is my own mind; the way I experience orange is by my mind.

Right. What we experience is produced by the mind. What we experience is from the point of view of mind. That has to do with interpretation. For example, feeling that “I am a loser.” That’s an opinion coming from the mind. That’s not objective reality. Different people have different opinions and ideas. 

Where Mind-Only interpretation is problematic is, for example, in my interaction with you. That can be described as the mental hologram of you and how I interpret it, but I really don’t know you. I see the body, but I don’t know your history or anything about you. What we’re dealing with is that information. The question is, do you exist as a separate being, separate from me? That becomes tricky in this system. 

We can say that our perception of someone is our perception. Then, does someone exist separately from us? We can’t prove that. How can we prove that? By looking at a birth certificate, only by mental interaction. That makes a bit of sense; but to take this to the extreme, as some do, that others and anything doesn’t exist at all separately, is a difficult problem, especially for the development of compassion. 

It is refuted by other systems; but it isn’t solipsism. 

It absolutely is not narcissism or solipsism, saying that we’re the only thing that exists. However, there is the danger in that way of thinking of going to this extreme. The other philosophical systems do acknowledge that there are external sources of data. Things come, as explained in Buddhism, from the elements as their source. We will get to this in the Karma Kagyu explanation, in that in one moment the electromagnetic waves make contact; in the next moment the mental hologram arises, and in that moment, the electromagnetic wave is finished and isn’t happening. There is a time lag. We’re never actually seeing instantaneously or simultaneously what is happening. There is always a microsecond of time lag. 

That’s the point where the discussion comes in. How do we know there was something before knowing it or seeing it? How do we know there is food in the refrigerator until we open the door and look?

Thinking about the idea of a healthy sense of self and ego as a troublemaker. In Western psychology we might frame it in the same way. What is the Buddhist contribution to establishing a healthy sense of self?

The Buddhist point of view of how to develop a healthy sense of self is described in Lam-rim, The Graded Stages of the Path. We can find this in Jewel Ornament as well. We think of the precious human rebirth that isn’t going to last forever, and therefore we need to take advantage of it by working for improving future lives, for liberation and enlightenment. That’s developing a healthy sense of self – that we have this precious human life and we better use it and take advantage of it. That’s a healthy sense of self. It’s right there in the Buddhist training.

When I’m becoming a watcher of what I’m doing and what is going on in the mind, have I understood correctly that it’s the brain that watches the mind?

No.

I can try to use an example. If I look in the mirror; I can see that I’m getting older. Inside myself I still feel young. Who is watching? It’s like two things. There is this place inside that thinks and feels like I am constantly young, and it never changes.

Looking at the mirror, we have a comment that we are getting older. This we will get with the analysis of the five aggregates. This is why the five aggregates are so important. Basically, what is happening, you are making a dual appearance of the “me” and the image. First you are identifying with the body, as in “I am getting older.” The body is getting older. From beginningless mind the point of older is meaningless. There is a distinguishing of certain defining characteristics that can be called getting older such as wrinkles, gray hair, whatever. There is the distinguishing of that and identifying it as the distinguishing factors of getting old. Then, there is a conceptual mind arising, thinking that, and words that are designated on that thought. There is the mental hologram representing the sound of words. 

The “me” experiencing it is identifying falsely the “me” as being identical with the sound of those mental words, as if there is a “me” existing separately from everything else, and it is actually talking. There isn’t. “Me” is a fact about the whole phenomenon of that moment of mental activity. It’s a fact about it; it’s me that’s thinking and me that’s seeing, me that sees the image. Are there all these different me-s or is there just one me? No; it’s just a fact about that moment. It’s not separate from it, different from it, identical with any of the parts. Like that, we analyze.

On top of that, there can be the judgements that “It’s so terrible that we are getting old,” as opposed to “How interesting that we are getting old,” or “How old I look, how fascinating.” The inner feeling of being constantly young is one I know very well. As for it never changing, that is the incorrect view of the self that is actually changing every moment as being static and not changing. That’s called incorrect consideration. It’s how we consider things, and incorrectly label them, in a sense. One might feel young; but what does it mean to feel young? We are feeling something but just giving it a name, “That’s young.” That’s just a word.

Then comes the difficulty of these two. I know what you’re saying because it makes sense.

The difficulty is that this arises automatically. The sense that there is a “me” which can be known separately from the body or from anything else. From this we think that the body is getting old but we’re not getting old. That is the false view of a “me” that can be known separately from the body and mind, the basis. Afterall, there are the concepts of young and old. What does it mean to be young? What are we referring to as young? Is it that we’re not even toilet trained? For instance, one might feel that they don’t know what to do in life or that it’s time to find a partner now. It’s a concept.

It’s a feeling of being childlike. Still, I look in the mirror and see one thing and feel something else.

Well, one can be childlike without being a child. That’s just a description. We can be creative or imaginative, these are just the qualities. That is the big bad news. The bad news is that it feels like that and so we believe it. This is what automatically arises; and this is what we have to eventually come to recognize as nonsense. Just because we feel young, doesn’t mean that we can run up that flight of stairs. There’s reality and there’s what we imagine.

When we understand mental labeling with categories and concepts, and this does come in the Mind-Only School, then we understand that we can label anything in different ways. How it is explained is that the basis isn’t the definite support for it. For instance, we could describe the way that we feel as creative, imaginative, energetic, flexible in thinking and so on. That’s a way of describing what we then give the label childlike. Then we have other associations with child that don’t fit in with what we see in the mirror and then we get so-called cognitive dissonance. What we feel and what we see aren’t in harmony. 

Don’t label it childlike. We don’t have to label it that way. That’s the trouble. The label that we give it is optional.

It’s just hard to describe the feeling of that.

This is the incorrect consideration of what is changing as being unchanging. The way to deconstruct that, at least in terms of the body, is to get a series of photos spanning your life and then look at them. How do we know that they are all me? How do we know that this baby is me? How do we know that it’s me, as if there were a “me” separate from all these pictures that it should look like? That’s pretty weird, isn’t it? The “me” is always changing; that’s what we have to try to understand, that the “me” isn’t something that is static and unchanging. 

Again, the problem is that it feels like that. It feels like we went to sleep last night and get up in the morning and here we are again. Voila! Same me; here we are. It’s not a completely different person; but it’s not identical. These are the philosophical things that one ponders. 

It still feels that there is one thing inside that is never changing.

What?

It’s to be found out.

It’s a myth. That’s what we find out. Because we don’t know what that is, we feel insecurity. When we feel insecure, we are trying all sorts of strategies to make ourselves feel secure, and that’s impossible. This we know from experience because things change from moment to moment. We’re trying to make something secure that doesn’t exist at all. It’s impossible. To make the cloud secure, we try to anchor it. It’s impossible. It’s a deceptive appearance and, as mentioned, it feels like that and it’s how we experience it. Just because we feel like that, it’s nonsense. So what? 

This is an interesting approach. So what? It’s no big deal. Don’t follow out these thoughts. That’s what we train to do in meditation. Don’t follow out the thought; we feel like that or think like that. So what? It’s just a thought. That takes a lot of training.

Thinking about the question of who was I as a baby or as a woman? It feels like I am the same person. It’s how I experience it.

The pictures that we see are a continuum of the self. There’s a continuum of the self; they’re all “me,” but they have changed over time. They have aged, but there is this feeling that the person recognizing it, the “me,” is the entire experience of looking at it and so on. What you are identifying with is the “me” who is watching, as though there’s a “me” that is the observer. That’s just alertness and awareness of what is going on. That doesn’t mean that the awareness of what is going on is identical with the “me,” and what’s going on is this dualistic thing.

That’s the real heart of what we are working on, this dualistic feeling of “me” as the mind or the awareness that’s looking at things. Whatever is going on with mental holograms and emotions and so on, there is the object over there and there is “me” over here experiencing that over there. What follows from that is “poor me.”

Maybe what I am identifying is awareness.

There is awareness; that’s there. The problem is identifying it as a separate “me” that is aware, that’s watching. We will get to this. In the moment of mental activity, there are many parts. One of the parts is alertness and another one is awareness of what is going on. That’s just part of the package. The thing is not to identify with any of the parts. That awareness of what is going on is a spectrum in which we can be aware or unaware. It all depends on another factor, attention, which then depends on interest. All of these are interrelated.

When we talk about an individual, isn’t the individual observing that getting older?

There is the recognition that one is getting older, but there’s no separate “me” that is recognizing that. However, it feels like that. It doesn’t have to feel like that, but it is a fact that we are getting older. There is a difference between a fact and how we experience being aware of that fact.

I agree with that. 

We don’t have to buy into that and follow out that thought. That’s the whole trick. These thoughts are going to arise and the attitude that I adopt I call “nothing special.” I think I’m looking old; nothing special about that. So what?

Let’s end with a dedication. We think whatever understanding, whatever positive force has come from this, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause for everyone to reach the enlightened state of a Buddha for the benefit of all.